


Childhood Friends

by fluffernutter8



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, F/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-World War I, many other background characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 10:44:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17242826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffernutter8/pseuds/fluffernutter8
Summary: Peggy comes home to Shield Hall after spending the Great War as a nurse, and finds that there is much to be contended with in the place where she grew up.AU based on Eva Ibbotson's A Countess Below Stairs/The Secret Countess.





	Childhood Friends

Peggy Carter’s life was planned from the minute she was born, and from the second minute, she was attempting to wriggle out of those plans.

The line already assured with a healthy and thriving son, four years older, her parents were delighted to welcome their new baby daughter Margaret. They were certain that she would soon be taking tea with the daughters of the best families in their corner of Kent, followed soon by entry into St. Martin in the Fields, the girls academy of which her mother was such a respected and proud graduate. Naturally, her mother would join her for appropriate chaperonage during the season, where she could be introduced to society and would meet an eligible man to whom she could become engaged. (She would love him, one supposed, just enough, but not so rumors would be spread about her behavior.) Perhaps her new husband would live far from the ancestral seat, making visiting difficult, but such sacrifices were expected, and her parents would give of their daughter gladly into her expected life.

Peggy did make friends with the local girls, in fact, but was closer with the boys. Though the girls themselves were mostly frank and lovely, the boys were not supervised as closely. They were expected - and indeed encouraged - to spend their leisure time racing full out on horseback, and playing pranks or being loud was brushed off as only natural. Being friends with the neighboring boys was, in short, more fun. And she quickly found some most suitable candidates for friendship.

The grooms and driver could not resist small Miss Carter before she quite got the hang of transporting herself, turning into her gruff partners in crime. And despite Peggy’s mother’s carefully worded hints to their closest neighbors, the Barnes’, Peggy was never turned back at their door. Remembering the way she had once stared longingly out the window as her brothers had caught frogs in their pond, Winifred Barnes instead welcomed Peggy in and never once allowed the word “ladylike” to cross her lips.

Peggy was, nevertheless, eventually conveyed to school in order to learn the appropriate skills and be finished in the style of the day. She was clearly quite clever and soon became known for having a quick wit and a good mind. However, a main point of conflict between herself and the staff became evident quite quickly: Peggy did not, in fact, want to be finished, and, indeed, wanted to keep certain elements of herself _unfinished_ , as it were. Oh, she could learn how to curtsy, play a pretty tune, or make a menu for six different occasions, she could do it all the quickest and best in the class. She just didn’t particularly care for it, and made it plain that she thought these skills were, on the whole, not the type of thing she would hope to be learning.

Still, she made the best of it, supplementing the official curriculum with books and advice from some of the more progressive instructors (there was a rumor that their drawing teacher had once chained herself to a fence in a suffrage demonstration, but, based on that formidable woman’s continued employ, this had never been verified). And she likely would have continued thus through her graduation, but for the declaration of war in the summer of 1914.

Her brother, when he joined up that autumn, told her that things would certainly be over soon, and her mother wrote that this was all an opportunity to host some benefit balls. But Peggy read the papers herself, and received letters from the boys her own age, now joining up as well. A year into the war, which she was now sure would last beyond all estimations, she had had enough of knitting socks and following from the sidelines. Though she would not be even eighteen until the following April, she put up her hair, stood very straight, spoke firmly, and passed for twenty-one, old enough to be allowed into training for the Voluntary Aid Detachment Home Service. And when her mother, actually telephoned by the headmistress, came to London to drag her daughter home if necessary, Peggy simply informed her that this was her purpose now, reminded of the oath she had sworn to the King, and went back to her duties.

She wore her snowy nursing apron and crisp cap more proudly than she ever had her school blouse, and her calm, knowledgeable manner made her a favorite among staff and patients alike. Even when her brother was reported missing and, quickly after, dead, six months before the Armistice, Peggy took only a week away for travel and the funeral. She came back quieter, a black band around her uniformed arm, but no less capable. She never did, however, quite get over the whole, futile thing. Twenty years later, as her children went off to fight Hitler, she was known to say grimly, “Well, at least this is _for_ something.”

She was one of the last VADs to leave her ward after war’s end, staying until all the patients had been discharged or moved to more permanent facilities. Still not quite old enough to have honestly joined the outfit, she was sent with honors to a home that did not feel like it any longer.

* * *

“Well, I can see why you would want to get away from here.”

Peggy turned from the car window to give a small smile to her friend Angie Martinelli. The daughter of a well-known English stage actress and a wealthy Italian businessman, Angie had been at school with Peggy for several years. When her father had married an American (also a stage actress; his taste had always been apparent) Angie moved across the ocean with the family and only a light correspondence ensued. However, as Signore Martinelli’s luck had turned in the war - his mines and factories in France and northern Italy destroyed, consumers across the continent without the funds to buy new goods - Angie had been informed that she could not stay at her new school. Her tuition, the headmistress politely informed her, had been paid until term’s end, but unless a payment was received after that, new arrangements would have to be made.

Angie made her own arrangements, using the remains of her spending money (and some won from other girls at cards) to buy a ticket and braving the ocean crossing to London. Once there, she had presented herself at the Red Cross office and wouldn’t budge until she left with an assignment.

Although the work was a great deal more gruesome than she expected, Angie availed herself well enough, and left with two blessings. First, a renewed relationship with her old school friend, as she and Peggy found themselves working long shifts side by side. Second, a new career. She had been known for entertaining the soldiers on the ward with a sly joke, a well-turned impression, or a song, and one of those men happened to be the manager of a theater company. After the war ended and he finished his convalescence, he had contacted Angie and asked her to join the group, which was now reformed and had bookings in Paris.

“Poor French bastards probably need some cheering up,” Angie had said with her usual kind, brash brand of pragmatism, and agreed.

She would be back to London for rehearsals in a few weeks, then on to the continent in the new year, but first: a visit home with Peggy, both of them pretending the invitation had been for Angie’s sake rather than to help cushion the blow of seeing the Carter family so permanently incomplete. 

Peggy truly appreciated the job she was doing, looking impressed and excited as she took in what she could of the Carter home and the surrounding countryside in the dusky light. Although, Peggy admitted, it might not have been hard: for someone who hadn’t grown up there, the house could be impressive. Shields Hall, known in the neighborhood simply as The Hall, had seen generations of Carters born, brought up, and buried, and its age showed like a stately grand dame. It had been carefully updated on the inside over the years - heating and plumbing added along with electricity, private rooms altered to allow a bit of coziness - but the old bones remained, timeless.

“It wasn’t the house I was trying to get away from,” she told Angie quietly. “It was how I was expected to behave in it.”

“Well,” said Angie, squeezing Peggy’s hand. “Those expectations have changed.”

Angie spoke the truth. For, despite her mother’s objections, Peggy’s father had made clear that with his son gone and their land free from entail, his daughter would now inherit everything. 

“It’s quite a large job,” Peggy said casually, still staring out the window, refamiliarizing herself with her home after so long, taking in the picturesque nature of it all thanks to the recent light dusting of snow. In truth, Peggy was well-suited to the task of management, but entirely lacked training. Had she any thought of needing to know these things, she would have eagerly listened as her father guided her brother through an understanding of the grounds and forests, staff, animals, and other holdings. But as it was, none of the Carters had assumed there would be a need for her to inherit, and so she had been happy to bolt out of doors and find other amusements for her body and mind. Now, with everything on her shoulders and her father in poor health, Peggy wondered if this was truly the best choice after all.

Knowing that the weather had been dreary at best of late, Peggy had insisted that no one be outside to greet them. That her order had been obeyed was a good sign, and she was able to look at least somewhat cheerful and composed as she came into the familiar entry.

Peggy’s parents greeted the girls with warmth, but the ravage of loss was clear in the deep lines on Amanda Carter’s face, the new suit that Harrison Carter sported to hide the weight shed from his once formidable frame. The staff, too, lined up on the stairs, showed evidence of the war’s horrors. Mr. Phillips, the butler, was still there, true, a hidden softness deep in his eye for the girl he remembered, now future mistress of the house, but nearly all of the footmen looked young and new. Young enough, Peggy guessed, to have avoided both conscription and the early, deceptively optimistic attitudes of the war. Many of the maids were different as well, and Peggy remembered a complaining letter from her mother mentioning that they were having to hire on new girls at a steady, unheard-of clip, as the old ones kept leaving for newly opened jobs as factory workers or drivers. (Peggy, who had spent the afternoon she received the letter holding the hand of a boy - and he had been a boy - as he screamed and screamed toward death, had delayed replying, as she had not been able to summon a response to such grievances for nearly a week.)

A quarter of an hour later, the family was settled in the parlor, Angie being offered first choice of the provided pastries.

“Angie has some cousins nearby, Papa,” Peggy said. “I was hoping she would be able to take the car to visit them sometime this week. It would also give us an opportunity to begin going over things - I know there must be much to discuss.”

“Of course Angie may have the car,” intercepted Lady Carter. “But as I’ve told your father, there’s no reason to dive so eagerly into these preparations. It’s only a month until the new year, and certainly things can wait until after the holiday season. You do need some time to rest, after all. Perhaps you’ve forgotten, my dear.” Peggy shared a quick glance with her father, with his tiny wink confirming that he and her mother had already tread this ground many times. Peggy was the one who looked away. She did not want her father to see her worry that things could not wait. She had never thought to be taught these things before with Michael, so hale and well-suited, in their lives, and they were now all paying the price. However sweet and proud his smile, the shock that her father had gone through was clear, and if something were to happen, she wanted him to be assured that everything was in good, competent hands.

Not knowing, or perhaps knowing all too well, the thoughts that Peggy was having, her mother continued blithely on, “And of course I will need your assistance with the preparations for the party on Christmas Eve.”

“What party?”

“Oh my, I’d forgotten you wouldn’t know. I imagine everyone realized that you would be home before a letter could reach you.” Amanda put down her teacup and clasped her hands together. “We heard from Winifred two nights ago. James is finally coming home - and he’s engaged!”

“Bucky’s coming home?! Engaged?”

“A lovely girl, one understands, who was instrumental in helping to heal him. We will be hosting a ball in honor of their engagement. Of course James was always your friend, so I knew you would want to help.”

If there was a tiny bit of false enthusiasm to her voice, Peggy knew it was only the thought of how Michael would never come home with a sweet young bride. Peggy herself, however, was overwhelmed with the news. She had grown up with Bucky and all of the children around the Barnes house; it had been to that nearby estate that she had raced at every opportunity. Once they had been sent to school, they kept up with periodic letters and saw each other during time at home. Even after Bucky had joined up and been sent to France, there had been some exchange of correspondence, but it had abruptly stopped over a year ago. Peggy had been able to find out that he had been seriously injured - had, in fact, lost an entire arm - and had looked to relocate from her post to help, but her offers were rebuffed both by official channels and, in unfamiliar writing but familiarly vehement phrasing, by Bucky himself. That he was finally healed and rehabilitated enough to come home was a great blessing indeed.

“I’ll have to go visit tomorrow, to congratulate him.”

“Yes, he and his fiancee should be settled enough to receive callers,” said Amanda. “And of course,” she added, with poorly disguised disdain, “his cousin has come home as well.”

Peggy sipped her tea, using the motion to disguise the slightly stricken expression that came over her face at the mention of him. Steve Rogers was one of many cousins of the Barnes children, but the only one maternal one and the only one Peggy knew personally. He was the son of Winifred Barnes’s sister Sarah, who had disappointed the family by marrying an Irishman - not one with a title and a lineage you could share comfortably with friends, you see, but a perfectly ordinary shopkeeper with whom she had fallen so deeply in love while visiting Dublin that she had left behind her family and inheritance. That she and her husband had sickened and died as fever swept the town was seen by some as a quite literary consequence. That young Steven, a thin child who seemed to have been in some state of ill health since his birth, survived the fever was seen as something of a miracle.

He had been sent to live in Kent with his only remaining family, where he and Bucky became quick and absolute friends. Peggy, wary of the shifting calculus of relationships, had sought from the beginning to ensure that her place as developer of plans and leader of mischief would be unchanged, but she needn’t have worried: Steve followed readily, and was known to come up with some half decent schemes himself.

While Steve’s place among his family and with the children of the area had been secure, however, his reputation with the adults of the neighborhood was less than stellar. Amanda Carter had never forgotten bending down before him during their first meeting, placing a sympathetic hand on his shoulder and saying, “If only your poor mother had been here rather than in Ireland, I’m sure she at least would have survived,” only to have Steve say, plainly and guilelessly, “Oh, has someone sold you a miracle tonic for fevers? They never work, everyone at home knows that.” Although he was generally polite and helpful even as he grew older, his background combined with a propensity for misbehavior (and even violence when he felt it necessary) made the Carters and their friends mention him with a weary look.

Like she and Bucky, Peggy and Steve had traded letters while at school. Somehow, however, rather than becoming briefer and eventually tapering off, their letters became longer and more detailed. Peggy was known to dash and dodge in a way most improper so as to be the first of the students to receive her mail. Steve was the only one who had been told in advance of her plan to become a VAD, and she was one of the very few to whom he fully confided his disappointment and anger at being deemed unfit for service with the army. Although he never backed away from running about the countryside with Peggy and his cousins, they all knew that Steve’s health had always been somewhat delicate. If the rest of them got measles for a few days, Steve would suffer with them for over a week. If any cough or cold was going around the neighborhood, Steve would inevitably be the one to catch it, and would often become dangerously ill. Peggy had been privately unsurprised at his rejection, but still disappointed on his behalf.

It had come as something of a nice surprise for the both of them, however, when Steve’s work making leaflets for the Foreign Office and Peggy’s nursing meant that the two of them were in proximity and could see each other regularly. There was a particular tea shop that became their preferred meeting place; the proprietress gave them a special smile, even as her ability to provide a proper tea was winnowed by rationing. It was only there, with heads bent closely together, that Peggy wept quietly over the terrible things she saw each day and had to pretend not to see so she could sleep and begin again in the morning, there that Steve shared how easily he would have gone to war himself, but that using his words and drawings to convince others to join up seemed more treacherous by the day. It was only at their traditional table that they could make each other laugh and shore themselves up for another day in a war that they experienced only in terrible echo. And it was there, in their place, where Peggy asked Steve for the first time to marry her, and where he for the first time rejected her.

Their few meetings afterward were stilted and terrible, Peggy asking over and over _why_ he would not agree, and Steve telling her only that, yes, he did love her, and no, he certainly could not marry her. Then they received word that Bucky had been terribly injured, and more than her old friend’s exhortations for her not to come, it was Steve’s quick resignation of his position and move to Hampshire to help the recovery of his cousin and best friend which kept Peggy away, assured that someone she trusted would be there instead. He had kept her updated for a while with brief notes which seemed to say much about the state of both boys by saying so little. 

The last time she had seen Steve was when he had come back briefly for Michael’s funeral. He hadn’t even been able to stop at home; she could tell from his disarray that he had changed on the train and only had an opportunity to splash a bit of water on his face in the station cloakroom before racing over to the chapel. Amanda Carter had somehow managed to notice his dishevelment even through the haze of her grief, and sniffed at it, but Peggy had been immeasurably grateful. Later in the cemetery, after everyone else had left the coffinless grave-marker, they wept together. Through her tears, Peggy asked Steve for the second time to marry her, and through his, he rejected her again. This time, though, he did tell her why: “Not like this, Peggy. Not like this,” he said as they held each other, and those were the last words he spoke to her before he returned to Bucky in the hospital.

“It will probably be nice to see some more old friends,” Angie said politely, selecting with care another of the tarts for which the Carter’s cook was famous.

“Of course,” said Peggy, and she sipped her tea, and left it at that.

* * *

Peggy dressed with care the next morning, the exact right amount so she would look fresh and presentable but not so much that the time spent on preparation was obvious. That she had spent her childhood at this very house with her dresses in a hopeless muddle and her knees insistently grass-stained, and that Steve had recently seen her in both a wrinkled nurse’s uniform after a night shift and indifferent mourning crepe below a tear-stained face, made her only more determined to put her best foot forward in this encounter.

She and Angie departed at half past ten - Peggy knew they would be invited to join the family for luncheon if they were still there at the time, and wanted to be sure that, if things went poorly, they could stay for a sufficient time as to excuse themselves without rudeness before the invitation was extended. In the full daylight, Peggy was better able to point out the landmarks of her childhood as they drove along, and her friend delighted in the picturesque buildings of the village and the beautiful country that surrounded them.

“I always liked getting to grow up all over,” said Angie, “but now I wonder if I missed out on having a _home_ like this. Not somewhere grand, necessarily, but where you know all the people and the little turns and memories, and everyone knows you.”

And without thinking much, because it felt only natural, Peggy said, “Well then you shall have to come back often after your tour, and we can make this your home.”

It was the first time that the inheritance seemed a blessing rather than a burden. Oh, surely Michael would have welcomed to the house her and any visitors she chose, but for it to be _hers_ , for Peggy to be able to throw open the doors to her friends without confirmation from anyone… She quickly pointed out the wonderful row of holly growing alongside the road so the thought of some sort of upside to her brother’s death did not root itself in her mind.

Brook Linn, the Barnes family residence, was of somewhat newer construction than The Hall, but no less grand.

“It was put up for consideration as an officers’ hospital during the war,” Peggy narrated as they climbed the steps. “But the government decided that the location was not ideal, and so it was used for fundraising events instead, and as a central storage place for donations.”

“They certainly have the space for it,” Angie whispered as the door was opened by the Barnes’s long-time butler Mr. Fury and they were ushered into the entry.

Peggy smiled. “You should have seen the games of hide-and-seek we played here,” she whispered back, and then stepped forward to greet Winifred Barnes.

The lines carved into Lady Barnes’s face reminded Peggy of those her own mother now sported; it seemed to have made little difference that Bucky had returned alive while Michael had not. But the offered hug was warm and kind and familiar, and Peggy felt at home at Brook Linn once again.

Once Angie had been introduced and greeted, Lady Barnes said, “We’re in the library,” linking her arm with Peggy’s as they led the way. The two of them conducted an impromptu tour, somewhat lacking in the official and famous pieces of history and tilting more toward amusing anecdotes: the hall where Peggy had been so determined to prove her balance and grace by sliding in her stockings (she had certainly proved it, skating from end to end perfectly, before she stumbled on the edge of the carpet and gashed her head open) and the imported armoir that Steve had scaled and used to surprise the others.

The good mood and fond memories were enough to make Peggy think that perhaps her worry had been overblown, but as they entered the library, there seemed to be a physical drop in temperature and Lady Barnes’s smile grew practiced and pained.

“James, darling,” she said, releasing Peggy’s arm to go over to the wing chair where her eldest son was seated. “Look who’s come for a visit!”

That everything was so familiar - Bucky’s neatly combed hair, the shelves of books and all the little tables that Winifred favored as obstacles to at least slow down the children who were constantly racing through her home - only made it worse. Bucky’s eyes took a long time to move up toward Peggy’s face and when they reached hers, they were blank and hard.

“Hello, Peggy,” he said, distant, as if someone had only showed him a picture of her in a book. As if they hadn’t hidden from boring parties together or learned to shoot using the same gun. She kept her face carefully neutral as she returned the greeting.

She seated herself on the part of the sofa closest to him and touched a hand briefly to his knee. “I’m glad you’re back,” she said, taking advantage of the way his eyes actually met hers to introduce Angie. “And you know Steve, of course,” she continued to her friend, striving for nonchalance and steeling herself to face him.

Steve sat by the window, but his back was to it, so he must be only using the light to draw rather than drawing the scenery outside. He looked up from his sketchbook to greet Angie, who he had encountered occasionally during their shared time in London, and then turned to Peggy.

He gave a pained swallow. “It’s good to see you again, Peggy,” he said, and she nodded. Clearly the two of them would just have to hope that they had played it coolly enough.

A small tap came at the door, preceding the entrance of a young woman in the crisp, well-remembered maid’s uniforms of Brook Linn. The redhead wearing it was unfamiliar - another new hire, Peggy guessed - but she placed her tray down gracefully and familiarly in its place.

“Thank you, Natasha,” Lady Barnes said warmly, and the maid gave a brush of a smile and a curtsy. In her “Yes, ma’am,” Peggy detected a well-disguised Russian accent, and looked at this new member of staff with both increased interest and pity.

But then a small cough came from the doorway, and they all looked up to see a tall, well-turned out blonde standing there. She wore a simple black and white checked skirt and a plum colored blouse, her hair in pretty curls lying on either shoulder.

Peggy stood to greet her. “You must be Miss Underwood. What a pleasure to meet you. Congratulations to you both.”

“Thank you so much.” She stepped into the room now, moving confidently across the rug. The maid, Natasha, slipped lightly around her and silently left the room. Dottie Underwood reached out a hand to Peggy. “You must be Peggy Carter. I’ve heard _so much_ about you.” And as Peggy met her eyes, she came to understand that they were in rather more trouble than she had thought.

* * *

Peggy turned out to be glad of her careful and considered planning; she soon found that she did not want to stay for too long in this place which had been her second home. Although being around Bucky was disconcerting, she had dealt with more than her share of shell shock cases, and seeing him in such a state only made her think about how lucky she was to have him at all when Michael was gone forever.

No, the problem was Dottie. There was nothing technically wrong with her manners. She was bright and respectful, listening carefully to the others in the conversation and inserting her own wit in just the right amounts. Even the strange condescension she showed toward Bucky, calling him “James” in a slow, emphatic voice, could be explained. She might have been a nurse, but it was different when the injured person was someone you cared about personally; good training and bedside manner could fall away.

The unease Peggy felt was beyond this, something so subtle she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. She only knew that it wasn’t imagined, and that was confirmed by a few quietly shared glances with Angie over the rims of their teacups.

The two of them clearly agreed that they could only take so much of this awkward gathering, and rose to take their leave. Lady Barnes rose to walk them out, but Steve said, “It’s alright, Auntie, I’ll take them down. I have to get a new eraser anyway.” And, shaking hands all around, Peggy and Angie were able, at last, to leave.

They said nothing to Steve until they had descended the stairs and been outfitted for the outdoors again. Angie was returned her coat missing one glove from the pocket, and went to ask after it. Then Peggy said in a low voice, “I’ve never known you to go through an eraser that quickly.” There had been a decent chunk of it when they had come in earlier.

“I’m trying to draw Bucky the way he used to be,” Steve told her. “I can’t get the eyes right. I’m going to wear through the paper soon.”

Peggy started, “Is there something the matter with—” and Steve interrupted her.

“Yes.”

“And what exactly are we doing about her and this engagement?”

Steve looked resigned. “Meet me at eleven,” he said. “I’ll tell you everything then.”

Angie returned just then with all her accoutrement in place, and she and Peggy took their leave of Brook Linn.

In the car, Peggy and Angie sat quiet, trying to shed the discomfort of their morning. Gazing out at the gray horizon, Peggy realized what had bothered her most about Dottie: she acted as if Steve was not there. For all her cooing politeness, she had not greeted him, had not responded to any of his points or comments, had not even looked his way. She had, in short, seemed to prefer imagining that he did not exist.

* * *

“She was the only one who seemed to be able to get through to him at all,” Steve said wearily as they sat that night in their old spot in the orchard. The trees might have been leafless but the divot in the land was dry and decent enough shelter with their backs leaning against the upward hillock and the wind blowing only gently behind. (They would have had a childhood treehouse to use as a meeting place instead, only every time they had begun collecting wood or stolen from their beds to plan, Mr. Fury somehow figured it out and was waiting.)

“He was violent?” Peggy probed gently. She had seen the panicked way that men could react - to sudden movements or loud sounds - and how sorry they were afterward.

Steve shook his head. “He was quiet. Nearly always quiet. Staring at the wall. Barely moved. He said my name, once, or I wouldn’t have been sure he even recognized me. It was like he’d left everything inside himself back in Belgium. But one day I went out to have a cup of coffee and when I came back, she was there. Dottie.” He said the name as if he had been allowed to rest a burden for a moment but then needed to take it again into his aching arms. “She was talking to him, and somehow she managed to get him to change and eat a little.

“At first I thought she was a miracle worker. He would listen to her when he didn’t even seem to hear anyone else. He started to come back to himself a little. But the more I watched her, the more I realized that there’s something wrong with her. When she smiled at the men in their beds, it wasn’t to cheer them up or keep a good attitude. I think she liked the idea of them being ill or injured. It gave her something to take care of.”

Peggy had once or twice had the notion cross her mind that without the war, she might not have been able to fight her fate for too much longer. It had offered opportunity for independence and the learning of skill and usefulness which she would have been almost certainly denied without it. She glanced away from him.

“It might not be as awful as that,” she offered carefully.

“She never seemed to mind causing pain,” said Steve. “If someone’s wounds had to be debrided, or someone needed to be strapped in to stop them thrashing about and hurting themselves, she would do it with a smile. The doctors were charmed by her looks and her fortitude, but the other nurses avoided her. They thought there was something wrong, and I agree.”

The wind gusted hard enough to ruffle the tops of their hair. Peggy watched Steve smooth his with that well-known, absent gesture. She trusted the instincts of nurses over doctors, and she trusted Steve.

“And when did she become put out with you?”

“You’re the first one to catch on to that, you know.” He gave a little, twisted smile. “As it was coming time for Bucky to be discharged, I went away for a day to organize things - book a sleeper on the train, and telephone up to the house. But when I returned, suddenly they were engaged. There was a ring that Bucky was certainly in no condition to have gone and bought. I confronted her about it directly. She looked down at me - I think she really enjoys that - and said that she understood if I was a little put out that my playmate was grown and moving on with his life, but that she hoped I would have the decency to let Bucky have his happiness.”

They were silent for a moment. Then Peggy said, “She didn’t even answer your questions.”

“Noticed that, did you?” Steve sounded so very worn through the false good humor that she took his hand.

“Then the only question now,” she said, “is what exactly we’re going to do about it.”

“I haven’t been able to get through to him. He just looks past me whenever I try to bring it up.” Steve’s voice started to have the merest inkling of a smile in it. “So I was hoping that you were going to say just that.”

* * *

That her two rejected proposals had not come up that first night seemed, as she slid into bed, understandable. The situation with Bucky was clearly far more pressing, and it was new, rather than the nagging pit in her stomach that had been there for months now.

But as she and Steve stole moments during her visits to Brook Linn over the next few days (Angie had indeed gone visiting, which allowed plenty of time for plotting), trading intelligence and proposing various ways to end the engagement, she realized how muddled her feelings about the whole thing were. To never see Steve again would have been ridiculous: he had been her friend since childhood, and it wasn’t so much that he enriched her life with his presence as that she was fervently, impossibly glad that she never had to live in a world where she lacked it. She could tell that he thought about it - Steve couldn’t hide very much from her - but if anyone could match her in stubbornness, it was him. Knowing the importance of their cooperation, she held back for now. But each time she saw the attentive way he listened as one of the grooms explained a problem with a horse, or how he wrote weekly to Bucky’s brothers and sister, his cousins, away at school, it became harder and harder to pull her socks up and tamp her feelings down.

Only once did she slip. As they agreed on their first plan, Steve gave a smile with just a tinge of the mischief which had been the bane of a thousand nannies and said, “I’m glad I have you with me on this.” And Peggy started, without thinking, “Then why—?” only to cut herself off as Steve turned his face from her.

She walked quickly away, leaving him beside the stairs, settling her expression as she walked to the conservatory.

If there are sportswomen who enjoy the breeding of dogs or horses, and gossipy women who enjoy breeding a rumor, Winifred Barnes was a gardner and she enjoyed breeding nothing so much as her roses. When Peggy found her, she was gently fingering a pale flower; by the placement it was one of the hybrids which she and the gardener would bend their heads over, scheming.

“I named it Underwood as soon as James became engaged,” Winifred explained, “because it was meant to be blonde but hearty, the way Dottie described herself in her first letter. But something’s happened. It’s not doing well.” She moved on to a clearly more successful red rose beside it, testing the dryness of the soil.

“Actually,” Peggy said delicately, handing her the watering can. “It was Dottie who I wanted to bring up with you.”

Winifred finished her watering, then set the can down with a soft thud. She stripped off her gloves, and leaned over to pat Peggy’s hand. “I wondered if you might be concerned. But not to worry, dear Peggy. This will always be a home for you when you need it, even when you’re mistress of The Hall and James is married. I’m sure he and Dottie would agree.”

Peggy stood firm. “I have concerns that she might not truly agree with you. In fact, I have felt since I met her that there is something amiss, and I wonder if you’ve noticed the same. Because if you have, I must ask for your help in convincing Bucky to break the engagement, though I know he might be loathe to consider it.”

Winifred looked down at the roses. She sifted her fingers through the dirt for a long while before she said to Peggy, “When James went to war, I prayed that he would come home whole. And when I heard that had been injured, I promised God that I would give anything and everything for him to return to me as whole as he could be. If Dottie helps him in some way, I will be grateful to her for the rest of my life, and my personal opinion of her does not matter.”

Lady Barnes was not known for her stubbornness as Steve and Peggy were, but Peggy recognized the maternal fierceness in her tone, and knew futility when she ran up against it. She nodded simply and took her leave.

When she came out into the hall, she encountered Steve and Dottie standing together, clearly in a quarrel.

“What’s happened?” asked Peggy, striding toward them.

“James has an appointment with the specialist in London tomorrow,” Dottie said, beaming graciously toward Peggy in a way entirely at odds with both her prior tone or a discussion of gruesome war wounds and prostheses. “And I’m sure I can take him there myself. I was his nurse, after all. I’m sure I can answer any questions about my fiance or his medical history without anyone else present.” The look of condescension she gave Steve was such that Peggy understood why he might prefer to be ignored.

But Steve said forcefully, “Even if you knew the exact number of _bandages_ he ever used, I’m not leaving—” but Peggy interrupted him, sliding her arm through Dottie’s.

“How about this,” she proposed brightly. “We’ll all of us go, and while we’re there, Dottie and I can have a bit of time for looking around at how we’re going to do up the wedding. I know it’s months away, but you can never be too early with these things.”

Dottie looked delighted, shifting closer to Peggy in a disconcertingly sisterly manner. Steve’s initial reaction was confused and murderous. Then he caught Peggy’s eye, registered her slight nod, and agreed too.

* * *

Only Dottie even tried to be cheerful on the journey to London. Bucky stared blankly through the window, giving just slightly delayed responses to any questions put to him. Watching him and taking into account Steve’s description of his even worse original condition, Peggy began to understand why Lady Barnes might accept this version of her son. Steve sat restlessly, brushing his hair about and looking at Peggy hopefully, as if she might be able to speed the train along or push Dottie off.

But it was Dottie herself on whom Peggy kept the closest eye: the way she placed her hand on Bucky’s knee and kept it there for ages as she chattered her way through the countryside, that the lighthearted litany of ideas for her perfect wedding did not match either the somber mood or that odd gleam in her eyes.

Bucky allowed himself to be prodded and manipulated by the eminent physician and for various artificial options to be buckled and strapped around his chest and shoulder. But when his lack of enthusiasm was detected, it was politely suggested that perhaps another appointment should be made for a later time. Although she knew that the longer they waited to have something made up, the more difficult it would be to integrate it into Bucky’s life, Peggy supported the idea. It was evident that little progress would be made on this front today.

Depositing the boys at a cafe for some tea, Peggy sighed quietly and girded herself for shopping with Dottie. Peggy was not overly fond of shopping under any circumstances, but these might have been the worst conditions that she had ever subjected herself to. Still, if it could change things, then she would look at the opportunity gladly.

Because they had left their earlier appointment more quickly than anticipated, Madame Rose was not quite ready for them. Instead, they were directed to the sumptuous waiting area of the bridal department and kindly asked to have patience. Peggy was glad to obey. She was not eager to reach the consultation, not only because wedding planning with a bride could be torturous under the best of circumstances, but because she still held out hope that they would be able to avoid a wedding entirely. It seemed prudent, under that circumstance, to limit the things that would need to be returned or cancelled. 

“It’s just what I always imagined,” Dottie said, her voice breathy and rapturous, as she gazed at the model dresses, floral touches, and thick carpets.

“Tell me,” asked Peggy casually, “when did you first consider that James might be a suitable prospect for you? I know that he was quite severely injured when he was first brought back to England.”

“I must have been around seven,” Dottie said thoughtfully, smoothing the skirt over her knees. Without being prompted, she went on. “I saw Brook Linn in a book, and I just knew that one day I would live there and get to manage every little thing. There wasn’t a picture of Jamie in the book, but I saw one in the newspaper afterward. So it was just absolutely wonderful the day they brought him in and I finally saw him in person.”

Peggy might have felt some guilty, swaddled happiness at the opportunities offered to her as a nurse, but to describe any of it as wonderful was irreconcilable with her experience. To describe Bucky so in his condition was absurd, abominable. And if Dottie had been fixated on the Barnes family for so long, things were going to be more difficult than planned.

Delicately, Peggy moved forward. “I just wonder whether the experience of Brook Linn will match what you had hoped. Lord and Lady Barnes are in good health; it will be some years before you would truly become mistress there. And even then, with James in the state that he is, I worry that he will require quite significant care which will fall to you.”

Dottie’s face blossomed open, her smile beatific, her eyes canny. “It’s so lovely of you to worry about me, but I have it all figured out.” She patted Peggy’s knee. “There’s so much room on the grounds and in the village. Whatever happens, James and I won’t be crowded. And I can certainly care for him. Sometimes I think I’m the only one who can. I always know just what to say to him.”

“Mesdemoiselles,” said Madame Rose, approaching them with a cheery grin and a curtsy, and gesturing them back into her bridal paradise. Dottie clapped her hands and followed, and Peggy fell behind them as well, feeling sicker with every step she took.

* * *

Peggy dreaded the train home even more than she had the journey there. At least that morning there had been hope: that Bucky would react well, react poorly, react _at all_ , to the visit with the specialist, that at least a groundwork could be laid to convince Dottie that she needed to end her engagement, that being back in their familiar haunts would convince Steve to spontaneously either agree to her proposal or at least explain himself. Now all of that was gone, and they were stuck together for the dreary, dragging hours until home.

As they arrived at the station and prepared to board the enormous train, however, Steve pointed down the platform and said, “Isn’t that Natasha?”

It was indeed. The Russian girl, with her bright hair and straight-backed walk, always cut a distinctive figure if one knew to look for her, and Peggy knew better than most. Once they discovered that it was Natasha who had been assigned to be Dottie’s maid until a dedicated servant could be found, Steve and Peggy tried at every opportunity to get information from her. Surely there was something Natasha could tell them? They knew that she took in everything and hid it behind a placid facade, so there must be an insight into Dottie’s character, or the name of some unsavory acquaintance spotted on an envelope (Peggy was not above blackmail) that she had noted. But Natasha rebuffed their questions. “If you do not know, then you do not know, and I don’t think he would like me saying,” she would tell them, everything from her hands to her apron perfectly arranged, and yet entirely non compliant. If it had been any of the other staff - the maids who had taught Peggy the facts of life because Lady Carter was not going to take care of it, or Miss Hill, the housekeeper and occasional secret supporter of their schemes, even Mr. Fury - they could have wheedled out answers. But with Natasha, that unknown element, that new and lone girl, they could find no access. That it was out of consideration for Bucky made no difference; surely they, his lifelong best friends, could be trusted to have his best interests at heart?

“Let’s invite her to sit with us,” Peggy said. The other carriages looked crowded, and their car would certainly have room for another silent figure.

But Dottie gave a small, polite, “Hmm.”

“Is there something the matter?” asked Peggy, turning to face her.

“I only wonder,” Dottie said, too thoughtfully, “whether it’s really the proper thing, inviting a servant to sit with us? After all,” she added with smooth haste, “I’m sure that she wouldn’t be comfortable outside her proper place.”

The train whistle blew. The people around them all picked up their step a little, pushed a little more. Natasha, down the platform, was getting closer to the carriage door.

Peggy waited for Bucky to say something. Surely her friend, who had spent his life refusing all signs of snobbery, would not stay silent in the face of this. But he did, looking at his feet, gazing emptily at the train. His arm was twined almost limply with Dottie’s, and he looked a bit lost with the imbalance. He barely seeming to notice that they were speaking at all.

“I’m going to sit with Natasha,” said Steve, and put his hands into his pockets, straightened his shoulders, and moved down toward the door she was entering. Peggy glanced once more at Bucky, and picked up her skirt.

The carriage was indeed crowded, but Steve and Peggy managed to make their way close to Natasha, and as stops were made and people filtered off, they were able to take open seats together.

“I would have thought that you would have your own carriage with your friends,” said Natasha, her voice so nonjudgemental that Peggy nearly expected her to pick some lint off her skirt to show her nonchalance about the statement. Her legs and feet, Peggy noticed, were in their graceful alignment, as always, even when seated.

“We certainly do.” Peggy matched her tone. “However, we thought that this would be more enjoyable.”

“Here? Really?” A gently raised eyebrow.

“Here,” said Steve firmly. “Definitely.”

Peggy said, “Even with the babies, and the smell, the experience is better by miles. Particularly the company.” The way Natasha looked quickly away as she smiled seemed more genuine than anything Peggy had detected from her before. Impulsively, Peggy said, “Natasha, have you ever heard Dottie...saying anything to Bucky? Anything that struck you amiss?”

She felt Steve’s confused gaze on her - surely if their prior entreaties had yielded nothing, this muddled question would be no better - but she kept her eyes on Natasha’s. And as she watched, Natasha’s smile tilted, turned sad and sorry.

“I was wondering when you would ask me this,” she said.

* * *

“She’s a monster,” Steve said furiously. They were tucked once more against the mound by the orchard. The new moon was approaching; there was little light. But Peggy needed no light to know the shocked, twisted look on his face which echoed what she felt in her own heart.

What Natasha had told them had shaken them both severely. If they had thought they had their minds around the horror of it, of Bucky in such a state, and engaged to this dreadful person, they hadn’t even begun to understand.

“We will have the party,” said Peggy grimly, referencing the event which had been placed once again into her consciousness, for upon her return to The Hall that evening she had been accosted by her mother, who unleashed a torrent of details upon her about what would surely be the most talked about party of the season. “And after that, we shall simply have to try everything to get rid of her. We’ll kidnap Bucky if we have to.”

“I want to do more than get rid of her,” Steve said, so quietly that she took his hand. “I want to go up to the house right now and pull her out of the bed where she’s sleeping so comfortably and shake her. I want to ask how she could do that, how she could see Bucky like that, how she could see _anyone_ , _ever_ , and tell them that they were right to think everything was their fault.”

Peggy had no answer. She could blame herself, certainly, for not realizing sooner that Bucky would feel guilty for his mere survival. He was so terribly loyal that of course his living when so many did not would strike him deeply. Steve must be thinking the same…

She found his hand where it lay loosely beside her and locked her fingers with his. “This is not your fault. And I’m not saying it only because I love you.” Speaking the words stole her breath. It wasn’t the first time she had said them aloud, it wasn’t that she hadn’t heard them reciprocated. It was simply easier to carry on with everything when she did not so actively remember what had happened between them. She caught air again in her lungs and continued. “We never could have anticipated that there could be a person like this. I will write to my old nursing supervisor. Surely if Dottie behaves like this toward Bucky, there are other patients she mistreated. In the meantime, I will keep her distracted, and we will make sure that she and Bucky are never alone.”

“And we’ll remind him that none of this is his fault either,” Steve said firmly, and Peggy concentrated on the feeling of his hand in hers, on the heat of him through his jacket, and felt despair and grave hope.

* * *

Balancing all of her responsibilities became quite the task over the next week. There were the obvious and pressing tasks that she and Steve had laid out, but Lady Carter seemed also to be around every corner with some new, pestering detail or question for the engagement party. Would the couple prefer silver accents or gold in the decorations? The orchestra was, of course, skilled in playing the traditional waltzes and dancing tunes, but should something a bit more seasonal be added considering the proximity to Christmas? At least the suggestion that Natasha instead of Peggy be on hand to help communicate with the Russian ballet troupe which had been engaged as the entertainment was met with approval.

Angie’s return was welcome, even as it added further responsibilities. Peggy had not forgotten that her friend had agreed to put her plans on hold to accompany her home, and wanted to give her something of a good time. Peggy finally gave a thorough tour of the house and grounds, from the ballroom even now being prepared for the engagement ball to the whispering gallery in the adjoining west tower and the room behind the secret panel which Peggy, Bucky, and Steve had managed to discover by accident in their childhood. Angie delighted in the nearly magical acoustics of the whispering gallery, which transmitted, purely and loudly, sound made in one specific spot to a matching spot at the other end of the room. She delighted, too, in the people they met in the village, who had known Peggy since her birth and welcomed her home with disapproval of her thinness and well-meaning murmurs of advice regarding the running of things at The Hall.

Although their continued, frequent visits to Brook Linn were far less enjoyable, Angie forbore them with grace and Peggy appreciated her presence. It was easier to keep Dottie distracted and away from Bucky between the two of them. That Steve should have a hand in that part of the plan was clearly infeasible - Dottie still rarely so much as acknowledged him as far as Peggy’s was aware - and Peggy did not envy him the intensive work he would have to do to reverse the message already sunk so deeply into Bucky. For her part, while Angie diverted Dottie as the group took a brisk walk on the grounds at Brook Linn, Peggy quietly told Bucky about the sadness and guilt she felt when she lost a patient.

“They’d come all that way hoping that we could save them,” she said, the sound of their footsteps on the icy grass nearly louder than her voice. “And we tried our absolute best. Sometimes we have to let that be enough. Just the trying.”

She caught a glimpse of Steve smiling toward her. Bucky did not give much reaction to her words, but she could tell that he was listening. She gave a little smile back.

As the week ended and the party drew closer, Peggy felt, for the first time in months, a bit of real hope. True, she had not made time to sit with her father and start in on learning about the management of her future inheritance. And although Peggy had dispatched a letter to her old head nurse, she did not yet expect a reply which would give them any sort of leverage over Dottie. Even as she and Steve worked to counteract the damage Dottie had done, they knew it would take quite a long time, and having her around, perversely pretending to comfort and help Bucky by validating his worst fears about himself, would only continue the damage. But Bucky actually seemed to be coming back to himself a little - remarking on something quietly to his mother without being prompted, hugging his sister as she came hurtling into the house on her return from school for the winter holiday - and Peggy saw the light in that.

They would get through the party, and then find a way forward out of this mess. If she didn’t believe it of herself, she believed in Steve. He was easy to believe in: the way he glared at Dottie with clenched fists even as she ignored him, all the times Peggy noticed him speaking quietly to Bucky, recounting childhood scrapes and tales of Bucky’s unshakeable loyalty, and those tiny, surprising moments that no one else saw when he would loop his little finger with hers, or give a little touch to her wrist as if to say, “I’m here, Peggy. You aren’t doing this alone.”

* * *

Although it was exactly the opposite of how Peggy wished to spend the day before Christmas Eve, one had to admit that Lady Carter had outdone herself with the party. Even with such little notice, the ballroom, and indeed the entirety of The Hall, was fitted out beautifully, the menu would be spoken of for years to come, the entertainment was sure to be spectacular, and nearly all of the guests had accepted the invitation.

The guest bedrooms at The Hall filled up with visitors - friends of Bucky’s from school, families whose connections to the Barnes’s went back centuries, dignitaries who could not be avoided (and very few acquaintances of Dottie’s, Peggy noted, even though her shipping magnate parents were alleged to have been socially mobile before their untimely deaths) - while Lady Carter had placed at Brook Linn mostly the men of Bucky’s army unit.

“I was worried,” Steve confided to Peggy in a hasty telephone call. “I thought perhaps it would set him back, but seeing them only seems to have woken him up a bit more. I think I saw him laughing with them earlier. And Dottie’s making herself scarce now that they’re here. Keeps bothering poor Auntie Win instead about how the house is run.”

Peggy did not even bother suppressing a sniff. Last week, Dottie had made her opinion of Mr. Fury perfectly clear - shouldn’t such an eminent home as this have a more...traditional head of the staff? - and Lady Barnes had not been able to hold back, telling her future daughter-in-law that they would be only too happy to help Mr. Fury if he had other aspirations, but so long as he was willing to manage their home as expertly as he had always done, he would be welcome there. “I must say, Steve, if there was some unfortunate accident during the party, I wouldn’t shed a tear about this odious woman.”

“I offered before,” Steve pointed out, and Peggy laughed.

“You certainly did, my darling,” she said fondly, and rang off before either of them could dwell too much on that.

* * *

The atmosphere as Peggy and Angie prepared for the party was more somber than usual, but not as deathly as it might have been.

“There’s bound to be some real corkers among those boys,” Angie said as she tried to decide between two necklaces. “Gosh, it’s been too long since I danced with a handsome soldier.”

Peggy, appreciating the attempt to lift the mood, went along. “We went dancing the night before we left London, and that was only a month ago.”

“I told you,” Angie said, waving off the maid’s attempt to attend to her hair and simply combing her fingers through the practical and stylish Castle bob she sported. “Too long!”

People had already begun arriving as the two made their way downstairs. It was the first time in years that Peggy had seen the neighborhood turned out for such an occasion, and it only made her sigh with sadness as she noticed the faces that were missing. That a sweeping portion of young men of her generation had been wiped out was one thing to read or theorize about, but wholly another to see in the absences around her home.

But she could not dwell on it long, for Lady Carter approached with the first introductions of the evening: an absurdly tall and handsome man named Thor, the son of a Norwegian diplomat, and his companion, Lady Sif, who had a look in her eye that made Peggy want to have her over for a cup of tea and a chat. 

The evening quickly became a whirlwind of new faces. There was an American millionaire named Stark who flirted with her and Angie shamelessly - shooting him down with a neatly turned remark was actually quite enjoyable because he seemed to take no offense at all. There were schoolmates whose names Peggy recognized from Steve’s letters. The mark of the war was on too many of them, and Peggy avoided with care mentioning anyone she did not see already present. And, of course, she met the men alongside whom Bucky had fought, who seemed to have adopted Steve quickly as one of their own. They were quite the motley crew: there was an Englishman, one of the innumerable members of the Falsworth clan who she had never met, and a Frenchman, but there were also several Americans (that two were from a black-only regiment, and one had enlisted in a fully Japanese unit on the island of Hawaii, and that they had all still ended up fighting alongside Bucky made the war’s chaos all the more evident) and a boisterous Irishman named Dugan who insisted on having the first dance with her.

After that, there was little time for talking. She put her music and dancing lessons to good use, moving gracefully from one partner to another. Even as she did, she kept an eye on the perimeter of the room, where Bucky’s fellow soldiers were keeping him good company and Dottie was being introduced around and offered partners herself. Dancing breathlessly to a fast piece with Howard Stark as he described the mansion he would build for her, Peggy allowed herself to relax just a little as she reminded him that he was standing at this moment in the mansion she already had waiting for her.

And then the music slowed, and Steve took her hand from Howard’s.

“Oh!” Amanda Carter flinched to see her daughter dancing, in a room full of handsome, wealthy, and titled men, with Steve Rogers. She began to step away from her place, to call Peggy away with some excuse. But her husband, who remembered a similar expression on his own mother’s face when he had professed his intention to marry Amanda, upon hearing whose surname even Charles II would have replied “Whom?” pulled her toward himself once more and said only, “Let them dance.”

It was a simple waltz. They had practiced it together as children. And yet for the focus they seemed to devote to it, one would have thought it the most devilish piece of movement in the world.

 _It feels as if I’m holding my breath_ , Peggy thought to herself. Steve’s hand in hers was desperately familiar and yet somehow entirely new, something that she tried to memorize with an intensity which frightened and confused her. Surely this was not the last time that she and Steve would dance? But as she looked at his sad and lovely face, she realized that their time together, which had always seemed so natural and unending, might be running out. No one had commented that Bucky was too young to be engaged; perhaps Steve too would find someone to marry soon. Perhaps, she realized with a sickness in her stomach, she would be married soon. She did want to pass the Carter lands to her children. But the thought of settling for someone other than the man before her, the movement of whose every expression was known to her and whose goodness she took as a matter of course, was depressing in the extreme.

“Come with me,” she whispered, already pulling him away from the dance floor, but before they could further dismay Lady Carter, the orchestra brought the music to a halt and the Russian ballet company which had been engaged for the occasion was announced.

Phillips had showed them the room earlier, pointing out the space which had been set aside for their performance, and they entered with a focus that seemed to ignore the audience entirely. Except, as they took their places for the opening of the act, there came a gasp. One of the ballerinas pointed and whispered to her neighbor, and the whisper caught on, until the manager of the company came forward and said in an accusatory voice to no one in particular, “You did not tell us that Natasha Romanova would be here!”

That Natasha, outfitted in her formal uniform and carrying a tray, had tried to slip away was evident. That she longed to watch the performance, to hear the patterns of familiar music and see the carefully cultivated talent of these artists, was likely clear only to Peggy. But she had been blocked by the eager crowd before she could escape entirely unnoticed, and she now stood frozen in the stares of the ballet troupe.

And then, one by one, the dancers sank into curtsies or deep bows. For Natasha Romanova had been the pride of Petersburg, a dancer of surpassing skill who would have had a long career of accolades, honors, and affairs had the Revolution not come to Russia. As it was, she had disappeared two years previous. That she was alive had been almost certain, that she was in England, where her company had been smuggled as the chaos began, was suspected. But to find her here, a servant even in this fine manor house, was a shock and an insult to the full and long lineage of Russian art lovers.

“You must come and show us something,” boomed the manager, ignoring entirely the protests of his hostess, who clearly wanted the performance she had hired them for. “Do us the honor of seeing a prima ballerina, even on such a stage as this.”

The company applauded their approval. Only the smallest ballerina, the one who had grown up in the same ballet school as Natasha and who had been there the night she left Russia, spoke up in a tiny, horror-struck voice. “She cannot!”

But Natasha just gave her a little shake of the head. She glanced briefly toward Dottie, glowering while the guests attended to the drama before them, then momentarily toward Bucky, who looked alert in a way now unfamiliar. Then she took off her apron and handed it to the girl beside her. The careful posture, the unconscious grace of her limbs which Peggy had noted so often before, were on full display.

She gave a nod to the orchestra, and they seemed to understand even without words what she needed them to play. Or perhaps it would not have mattered what they performed, because Natasha’s talent, her passion, was obvious even without proper shoes or costume as she began to dance. 

The crowd watched her rapturously and none more so, Peggy noted, than Bucky. The boy who had been dragged to plays and concerts throughout his childhood with bribes and threats, the man who it seemed had forgotten all joy in a trench in Belgium, watched this singular dancer with absolute wonder.

* * *

As the guests applauded and the Russians converged on Natasha, Peggy tugged on Steve’s arm and whispered, “Come on.”

And she was right to direct him away from the roaring noise of the party to the west tower instead. For, moments later, Bucky and Natasha arrived. Peggy did not even ask how exactly one of the guests of honor and the surprise star of the fete had slipped away. She only said, “We’ll guard the door,” and gestured to the hidden room which had been the place of so many hours of play and secrets. 

Bucky bent to kiss her cheek, and squeezed Steve’s shoulder as he want by. He somehow looked more awake, as if his eyes had been half shut since he had returned.

“Did you know about Natasha?” Steve asked, and Peggy did not say, “About her being a dancer, or about Bucky being in love with her?” but only shook her head.

(“When you told me that you had been a dancer,” Bucky said, “I didn’t think that it would be like that.”

“Well,” said Natasha, raising a delicate eyebrow, “you did not ask.”

“I know. I’ve been...It’s been hard for me. The war was hard, watching so many boys die beside me, who I couldn’t save. Then coming back was hard, being told to go on living when they hadn’t. I’ve been trapped in my own head for months now. And then there was Dottie.” He frowned. “She just kept whispering in my ear that yes, I was to blame, but she wanted me anyway.”

“Of course, if you had asked one person who truly cared for you, they would have told you that was utter rubbish.”

Bucky smiled a little. He liked the way her well-learned English accent broke a bit as she allowed herself some emotion. “I think that’s what Peggy and Steve have been trying to do.”

“Then you know who you should listen to,” said Natasha pointedly.

“But even if Dottie’s wrong and they’re right...Even if I’m absolutely blameless for anything that happened…” He gestured to his left side. “I’ll never sit a horse or drive a car again, and how can I inherit like this? I’ll never live the life I thought I would live.”

Natasha’s voice whipped out at him. “And don’t you think all those you mourn would give anything to live any life at all? To pity yourself for a short time, perhaps, but to spend months, _years_ , deciding your life is over even as you could be living it? Ridiculous.” She crossed her arms. “Was not your Sir Bedivere a Knight of the Round Table even with only the one hand? Have you English grown so weak over the centuries that you would give up these things that you hold so important without even trying?”

She softened just a little as she fell into remembrance. “When that group of Bolsheviks found us in our lodgings the night before we dancers were to leave Russia, when they discovered that I was the prima ballerina Natalia Romanova, they broke the bones of my feet even for sharing a name with the czar. That it was only the name I was given at the orphanage where I was found did not matter. They did not care that I likely came from poorer homes than they, and had worked hard all my life for my talents, for any opportunity that I could attain. They took it away in one moment, and when I arrived in England, I made sure to lose myself from the world I had known. I was certain that I would never dance again. And yet look at me tonight.” She came close to him. “Perhaps you will never gallop through the countryside as you once did, and perhaps your father will look at you with pity when he speaks to you of the land and the costs and the family name. But to say that you can never have any of the things you once loved, merely because you now have only the one arm?” She shook her head magisterially. “How absolutely ridiculous.”)

Peggy had been waiting for Dottie to find them. Even knowing that she had never gotten a full tour of the Hall, it was only a matter of time before she tracked them down to put her plan to rights. When she did arrive, Peggy peeked her head around the closed door to the tower and said, “Oh, I’m sorry, Steve and I were just in here talking.”

“So I suppose you haven’t seen James?” Dottie asked, her words sweet and smile fixed.

Peggy mocked up a little frown. “I’m afraid not. You can see for yourself.” She swung the door wide and showed Dottie the beautifully simple round gallery, empty except for Steve beside her.

“Hmm.” If Peggy had expected Dottie to move on, the other woman surprised her. “Well, if James isn’t here, then I might as well speak to someone else I’ve been meaning to have a chat with.” And she turned her hawk’s gaze on Steve.

“You never seemed eager to chat before,” Steve pointed out idly.

“Tonight is a special occasion, after all,” Dottie said. Peggy caught Steve’s eye, offering distraction, protection, but he only shook his head.

“We can talk over here,” he said, and gestured to a more private corner of the room.

“Is this about how you’ve been treating Bucky?” Steve asked, leaning back against the wall and crossing his arms. “Because I have plenty to say to you about that.” 

“I suppose it is about my helping James realize what’s best for him,” said Dottie. “And about how you fit into that.”

“What in the world is that supposed to mean? That I’ve been reminding Bucky that he’s worth something instead of the rubbish you’ve been feeding him?”

“Are you really quite sure,” Dottie asked, ignoring him with utmost politeness, “that your presence at the wedding will be welcome? Surely you’ve noticed how much pain James has been in lately, and I’m almost certain that seeing you doesn’t help. It reminds him, after all, of the time when he was a whole man, not to mention of his stay in hospital. Perhaps if you had not been so small and had been allowed to go to the fighting it would be different - you would have some common ground - but as it is, I worry that you will simply ruin what should be a day of happiness. And, really, isn’t James being happy the most important thing?”

Before Steve could say anything, there were loud footsteps behind Dottie, and a hand appeared, digging into her upper arm. “I think what would make me happiest is getting rid of you,” said Bucky, his face livid. Dottie spun toward him, her expression shining once again.

“James! How good it is to see you.”

“I can’t say the same for you. It’s one thing for you to make me listen to your horrible prattle, but to make Steve listen to your lies…!”

“Are you even certain about what you heard, darling? You only just arrived, after all.”

Bucky pointed across the room, and Dottie turned further to take it in: the door to the hidden room ajar, and Natasha and Peggy still standing at that particular spot across the room, the point of the whispering gallery where words would be carried as if from inches away.

Dottie put it all together quickly. She put a conciliatory hand on Bucky’s arm. “James, let us just go talk about this.”

It was difficult to tell who said “No!” the loudest, fastest, or firmest, but it was Bucky who continued. “I’ll tell everyone that you were taken ill so you can have a chance to pack, and I’ll wait a week before announcing that we’re no longer engaged. But I don’t want to see you at Brook Linn tonight, or ever again.” He strode over to hold the door for her. “And I would avoid asking Mr. Fury for assistance. He doesn’t like you very much.”

* * *

Although the ball ended slightly earlier than expected, few would claim that it had not been a success. The food, decor, and conversation were recalled favorably, but it was the performance by the ballerina disguised as a serving girl which received the bulk of the compliments. Still, Lady Carter bore it well, agreeing as she bade farewell to her guests that it truly had been memorable.

“I’m going straight to sleep,” she told her daughter as the last of those returning Brook Linn waved from their car (Natasha, notably, was seated between Bucky and his sister Becca). “And so should you. What an absolutely exhausting day.”

Peggy refrained from pointing out that it was the staff who had been working hard for weeks now in preparing the house, and it was they who now worked to clean it all up. She merely bade a good night to Angie, kissed her mother’s cheek demurely, and watched as Lady Carter swept up to her bedroom before moving toward her own.

Steve was waiting for her, as he had said he would be, staring out the window. There was a flush to his cheeks, and his hair was in gorgeous disarray.

Peggy collapsed back on her bed, which smelled fresh and lovely. It seemed impossible that she had risen from it only that morning; it felt as if a week’s worth of events had occurred since then. “I won’t believe it until we hear directly from Bucky and Natasha, and even then I’ll want to check myself to make sure she isn’t hiding in a cupboard somewhere, but I think that we might have well and truly gotten rid of Dottie Underwood.”

“And I didn’t even need to challenge her to a duel,” Steve said with a grin.

“Or push her off the tower.” Peggy levered herself up to look at him, her voice turning a bit serious. “We must still stay vigilant. If we’ve truly routed her from here, she might look to ensnare some other poor boy. I’ll be sure to write to the head nurse to update her. She had far more connections to those still treating patients. We will try to prevent this happening again.”

“I trust you.” The little smile he still wore was earnest, and even more so in the moonlight. She felt a little catch in her throat and fought it bravely.

“It was good to see Bucky again tonight. There was some time when I truly wondered if we ever would again.”

“I will cancel wedding plans for the rest of my life and apologize to everyone in England, Scotland, and Wales if it means that we have him back,” Steve said fervently, and she gave up. Had she only memories of some once and long ago goodness, his unselfishness and steadfastness, perhaps she could ignore it. But for him to stand before her, still as wonderful as he had always been, and deny her a relationship or even an explanation was too much.

“There could still be a wedding,” she said.

“Between Bucky and Natasha? I think Uncle George will put up a bit of a fuss - at least Dottie had money, if not a title - but we can all bring him around. Though I’m not sure they’ll be rushing to the altar. I have the feeling that Natasha has some aspirations of her own.”

“I’m not talking,” Peggy said with quiet weight, “about Bucky and Natasha.”

Steve, still beside the window, looked at her for only a moment before he turned to stare out at the grounds below. “Peggy—”

She sat up fully, but that was not enough. She got to her feet and faced him, hands on hips. “No, Steve. How many times have I asked you now?”

“This is the third.”

“Yes. And I’ll continue to ask until you at least tell me _why_. Until you give me a good reason, you know that I’m stubborn enough to do it.”

There was silence for such a moment that Peggy wasn’t sure that he would answer, a profound silence where she held herself listening until finally he began to speak.

“I am never,” Steve pronounced carefully, “going to be taller. I will never be better looking, or nobler, or more English, and if anything, I will probably become even less healthy. I will never be the kind of man people expect to be by your side. And I didn’t want to let myself marry you only for you to realize that I wasn’t what you wanted, what you should want.”

The way she strode over and grabbed his arm to turn him toward her, the burning grasp of her fingers: she didn’t think that either of them expected it of her.

“How dare you,” she said, her words low and seething. “For you to think so poorly of yourself is one thing (a notion which I will certainly spend time disabusing you of) but to think so poorly of me? What a damned insult.”

She let go and took a step away to allow herself room to pace. “Do you think that I’ve been completely addled for the past decade? Do you think me lacking in sight or understanding?”

Although it had been a rhetorical question, he started to protest. “No. No, Peggy, of course—”

She held up a finger sharply, now demanding his silence. “I know exactly how tall you are, or are not. I am aware precisely of your family lineage. I have known what you look like in childhood and now grown, in peace and war and this peace again. I know you, Steve, and that I love you and want to marry you has nothing to do with foolishness, or pity, or lowered standards. I’ve asked you in earnest and my intentions will not change, although perhaps my estimation of you has altered a bit now that I know how impossibly foolish you are, and how foolish and shallow you imagine me to be. Still, I will overlook this if you would simply agree to what you should have months ago.”

In the baited moment, she thought not of the times she had waited this way before and been let down. She thought of Steve at six, leaping on the back of an older boy for having made Becca cry. She pictured him the way she had at fifteen, drawing little cartoons to enclose in his letters so she could see the humorous and hard truth of his life at school. She remembered him remaining behind with clenched and futile fists, angry that he couldn’t go to war not because he wanted to kill, but because he wanted to protect, to find a fair end to the horror of it. And she saw him now, as he said, “Yes.”

She kissed him then. And when he said in a vulnerable voice, still close to her, “Are you sure?” she did not admonish him again. Instead she said, also quiet, “I promise, Steve. I didn’t ask you because I thought you were tall, or would be one day. And we can debate whether or not you are good-looking, although you will lose. I asked because you are kind and fierce and wonderful, and I love you very, very much.”

“I love you, too,” he told her. “If it makes a difference.”

She smiled. She felt filled with light. “It’s certainly nice to hear.”

“But maybe we should keep things quiet for a few days.”

“Whatever for?”

“Well,” he pointed out practically, “it’s one thing for you to be caught in your bedroom after midnight with your irritating little friend. It’s something else entirely when it’s your fiance.”

“Steve,” Peggy said with dignity. “I think you’ve insulted me enough for one evening without adding the notion that I might ever be caught.”

They were holding each other now, so close that if someone had come in or even spotted them through the window, it truly would be difficult to explain away.

“My apologies,” Steve said, the cheeky beginnings of his smile spoiling the solemnity of his tone. “I suppose it’s a good thing I have some time to make all this up to you.”

“I’ll see that you do,” said Peggy. “But don’t worry. We’ll have years and years for it, if I have anything to say.”

* * *

The trial of Dottie Underwood filled the newspapers for weeks beforehand, and would fill it for weeks afterward. The absolute scandal of it, this pretty, upstanding girl taking advantage of injured young soldiers and only seeming to show remorse once she had been caught, by turns disgusted and riveted those following it across the country and indeed the world. But it was the third day of the trial, when testimony was heard in regards to the case of James Barnes, that had the line for the gallery reaching around the block and the lucky spectators at the edge of their seats.

The morning’s witnesses, Steven and Margaret Carter-Rogers, were of interest in their own right, and the account they gave was quite chilling. Although there had been gossip for years about each of their rebelliousness - the Viscountess So-and-So had heard from her niece that Peggy Carter had made herself a hero amongst the girls at school by stealing into the headmistress’s room and making off with both underclothing and a bottle of brandy, and everyone had knew the conditions of young Steve Rogers’s birth - they acquitted themselves well. She was clearly the more level-headed of the two, but the anger that simmered in her words and bubbled over in his was obviously warranted and echoed by those listening. Even the judge shook his head at their descriptions.

It was after the lunch recess that James Barnes himself walked to the front of the courtroom. He was dressed in a handsome suit designed with only one sleeve, a style he had popularized among those survivors of the war with similar injuries. Although he had been seen twice entering the most illustrious prosthetic departments in the country, he had apparently made no selections there, or at least had not adopted one for regular use. He placed his hand without hesitation on the bible, swore his oath, and his testimony began.

The trial would go on for several days afterward - Dottie had been accused a range of crimes against a range of people - but when court was finished for the day, Steve, Peggy, and Bucky exited the building ready to leave London. Natasha, who had come for Bucky in the afternoon, would be returning to the school she had founded. (“My feet will never be good enough again for a career with a company,” she had told Steve and Peggy plainly, “but to teach new dancers? They could break my feet twice more, and I would still teach the new dancers.” And she had called in favors and leveraged her name, refused to take any of the offered funds from her friends, and started her school. She and Bucky corresponded regularly, and saw each other socially. Peggy had predicted that there would be another wedding within eighteen months.)

“You spoke well,” said Natasha, her arm threaded through Bucky’s. Steve and Peggy walked beside them, their arms twined too; their four sets of footsteps clicked in precise unison down the steps.

“We all did,” Bucky said, solemn and a bit far away. He might be doing better these days and he had done marvelously in his testimony, but the war continued to stain his thoughts. Although Steve no longer slept down the hall to hear his cousin’s shouts, he knew that the nightmares still came.

Peggy gestured, putting invisibly slight pressure on Steve’s arm, and they turned the corner quickly to avoid a photographer. “I wonder if even the best testimony in the world could have truly made a difference,” she said. After working with former nurses across the country, both old acquaintances and new, to gather a full account of Dottie’s crimes, Peggy had a comprehensive knowledge of the case. She had no doubt that Dottie would be convicted on several charges, particularly related to the strategic siphoning of funds from the accounts of a Scottish gentleman to whom she had become quickly engaged after leaving Brook Linn. But what Dottie had done to Bucky was, while horrifying and indicative of a twisted personality, not technically illegal. And those women who had nursed alongside Dottie and felt that she should be tried in relation to the sudden and mysterious deaths of several soldiers in their ward were due to be disappointed as well: while murder certainly was a crime, there would never be sufficient proof of it. 

“She’ll get hers,” said Steve, his jaw clenching. “One way or another.” He trusted Peggy’s analysis of the case (his wife was rarely wrong) and knew that on the financial crimes alone, her conviction would have Dottie in prison for at least several years, and too recognizably scandal-ridden when she got out. But thinking of the calm Dottie had shown in the courtroom, her fashionable hat with its small veil, the mocking little smile that had teased at her lips, had Steve’s shoulders bunching up beneath the three piece suit he had agreed to wear.

Peggy brought his hand to her mouth, brushing a kiss along his knuckles. “One way or another,” she promised, and he relaxed a bit just as they reached the car.

They had brought the driver today. Although Bucky had designed and tested an adapted automobile that he used regularly, and had begun a foundation to provide similarly outfitted vehicles to other amputees, they had thought it inadvisable to expect any of them to drive after their day in court.

The driver opened the door to reveal Lady Barnes already sitting inside. Any evidence of her earlier tears in the gallery had been erased. “Well,” she said brightly, “shall we go somewhere wonderful to eat?”

Steve glanced at his wife, at his best friend. He caught eyes with Natasha, who, like Bucky, was still working to lose that buried, serious look of a world upended and never quite returned to calm. “No,” he answered for all of them. “I think we should just go home.”

And they did.

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes you just want to write something, so you write it. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
